Why Haven't We Generated Sufficient Evidence? Part I: Barriers to Applied Research

Why are we doing so little clinical research? Part 2: Why clinical research is neglected.

Family medicine is a clinical discipline. So why are so few family physicians doing clinical research? Certainly there are notable exceptions to that generalization. But if you look at our publication record as a whole, clinical descriptive research is only a small part. Yet it is an important issue, with consequences for our place in medical schools. In this editorial, I want to address this i...

Aromatase Inhibitors for Endometriosis-Associated Infertility; Do We Have Sufficient Evidence?

Orally active aromatase inhibitors (AIs) have gained attention for treatment of infertile women with endometriosis in whom aromatase p450 is aberrantly expressed. This review aimed to critically appraise and summarize the available evidence concerning the use of AIs for management of endometriosis-associated infertility. PubMed was searched to May 2015 with the following key words: endometriosi...

Litigation-Generated Science: Why Should We Care?

BACKGROUND In a 1994 Ninth Circuit decision on the remand of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Judge Alex Kosinski wrote that science done for the purpose of litigation should be subject to more stringent standards of admissibility than other science. OBJECTIVES We analyze this proposition by considering litigation-generated science as a subset of science involving conflict of int...

Why we need qualitative research.

NAFLD leads to liver cancer: do we have sufficient evidence?

Primary liver cancer has several well-recognized risk factors, such as HBV and HCV infection, alcohol abuse and aflatoxin. Recent studies show that nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), especially its aggressive form nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is associated with an increased risk of liver cancer, mainly hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). On the other hand, clinical and epidemiological...